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Rhino Games AMA @ 5PM PST
EDIT: Thank you for all your questions! We are done answering questions for now but if we missed your question come join our discord: https://discord.gg/nnQmhz8
Hey everyone, we are Rhino Games, the studio behind Mythgard. We are excited to hold our first Reddit AMA, and our team will start answering any questions you leave below at 5 PM PST.
Here are our team members that will be available later today:
Phu - Founder, CEO
Potato- Senior Engineer
Hoon - Art Director, Artist
Halosign - Animation, Modeling
Martha Stewart - Art, VFX
Xeneth - Game Design
Leo - Community, Marketing
Xeneth
I will attempt to sneakily answer for Hoon instead of myself, mua ha ha!
Some of this comes out in the "making of a card" articles we've been experimenting with hopefully, but there's a LOT of Hoon AND the artists in almost every card.
Philosophically, I've gotten much more interesting results requesting art with somewhat vague, goal-driven language that leaves them a lot of room to mess around and make something that I couldn't possibly picture. I have an uneducated art background myself, (as evinced by MSpaint placeholders) so occasionally my input can refine stuff, but sometimes I'm not even assigning characters a gender or suggesting concrete solutions to the horrible problems I'm handing them!
"I don't care how you do it, but make sure this thing looks very tough and scary, but also empathetic. It's all in the eyes or the expression or something, words!"
Xeneth
Nothing should be doomed permanently, but I AM a much bigger fan of my flavor text writing efforts than my lore writing efforts, in general
Xeneth
Yes, I think so, but they can cause a loooot of bugs and have really unexpected knock-on effects on the game. Some tech is internally classified as "dangerous" and gets used sparingly
Xeneth
I think we've historically leaned the direction you've described, but I'm not sure the reasoning is usually to bolster depth directly or knead in additional exploration/play time per se... I'd say in most cases we felt "free" to push complex designs because other games like Hearthstone do such a good job of working within stricter complexity limits, something that I think can take more discipline and internal doctrine to get right and more polish to help "justify" if that makes sense. It's interesting to study Dwarf Fortress, potentially one of the best and most complex games of all time, and all the ways that people try to work accessibility into its core tenets without losing what makes the simulation so wild.
We do TRY to keep word counts as low as possible given all the complexity, though, really!
The Tournament mode is gonna make a LOT of configurations possible, I think we tested a 2v2 Draft just the other day, actually!
Xeneth
Yeah there's definitely examples of ALL probably directions for this, mechanics first, art first, themeing first, blends in-between them.
Marching Orders is one of my favorite "mechanics first" designs
Panic Raider is one of my favorite "art first" designs
"Themeing first" designs are tough... there's a lot of those, but Grinning Kolobok is a good one
Xeneth
2v2 stresses me out for some reason! I'm always letting someone down, ha ha
I did not originally think it was gonna work out as well as it does, but you're certainly right that co-op can be a huge social gaming driver. I think this is one of the things that Autobattlers are currently grappling with...
I think we'd have to fix some of the UI stuff around 2v2 and make some of the center lane interactions clearer for it to feel like a "main" mode though
Xeneth
We've actually intended to do small balance patches in the past that turned INTO big balance patches, so there's some evidence pointing toward an internal desire to do less shift more frequently, but there's gotta be some kind of middle ground.
Every 2 weeks seems pretty aggressive. Even Riot isn't tuning Runeterra as aggressively as League (thus far) but the LoL team's patch cadence is something they established and built a massive org around from the start.
Would you believe that they used to release an entire new CHAMPION every TWO WEEKS? They did it for like a year before slowing down, that's how they overtook DotA in terms of characters so quickly. It was insane (and very buggy).
4 months might be too long! Is that the current Hearthstone cadence, I've lost track
Xeneth
I believe we would make more, within reason, yes! They're interesting but probably easy to overdo unless you're something something YuGiOh...
I think he said elsewhere on here that the main burn mechanic inspiration came from a paper variant of MtG that Phu used to play way back when, but good ideas spring up in multiple places all the time, especially if they are elegant! I recall there always being a desire for a system like it from day 1, but it took some days or weeks for all the mana system ideas to settle into this shape. At this point there are quite a few reasonable "landless" design solutions out there, but faction restricted deckbuilding wins the "simplest" award, we just weren't willing to sacrifice as many things as you gotta.
Xeneth
I knew it! The scrollNarrative means I answered this elsewhere, meaning that I can't do some cute "Never! Maybe. ok" joke here
Xeneth
Obligatory "placeholder art looks like it was drawn by drunken weasels!" comment goes here
Xeneth
I think we're looking at a bugfix cycle that's directly tied to the Tournaments feature for some tricky code/production reasons. Balance isn't as big a focus as cleaning things up in the moment, but I can say that there are like, daily threats over here to that soon(tm) statement that has to be bandied about in times like these leading up to an official announcement.
It's not ideal, but pretty sure that when next we patch, anything that got nerfed in 0.17.6 is gonna be set to the full crafting refund option, (not the "time frame created in" restricted mode) but how long they'll be in that state hasn't been locked in.
Xeneth
It's pretty close, they're all troublesome in different ways, but I guess it's a tie between Norden for being classically good at too many things and Dreni for seeming irrelevant most of the time and then teetering into busted states using comparatively small card changes as a fulcrum.
Xeneth
There was a meteor spell that dealt damage to the occupant of a lane and then radiated outward, dealing 1 less to each lane in turn. The implementation for it was tricky and it didn't fit that well into any specific faction, but certainly very cool and the VFX would obviously kick ass. I think the shortest distance to viable wording on the card really hurts it; simple damage->shape idea that reads really badly once you try to lay it out.
This has got to be some sort of ringer; the MSpaint placeholders aren't worth the bytes they're printed on!
In all seriousness though, it would be really hard to justify checking all those awful textures into the game for the sake of an April Fools thing or funny joke, and they're also sadly not comprehensive; most of the cards don't even have placeholders, so it would also be a really weird task to go backwards and make them while trying to "forget" what the real card looks like, or making someone's kid that doesn't know the cards do a crazy amount of illustration work, ha ha!
Xeneth
MtG is definitely the biggest gaming influencer because some of us played so much of it back in the day. There's comparatively WAY less Hearthstone and other CCG experience on the team, but that doesn't mean there isn't some glancing over and influence, just probably way more subtle than the big chonking Magic references.
There are definitely a lot of fun things we can do with multicolor, but based on what's been made and which multicolor designs got reigned in it probably makes the most sense to explore those patterns in whole new cycles; give them proper space and representation as opposed to say, forcing in a couple of three color cards because we can, for example.
I do recall some discussions about what it would take to burn a card for one color or the other, but there's probably more elegant ways to explore that space than simply popping up a choice dialog after your burn.
Xeneth
There are indeed lots of references to other card games (and other games in general) peppered all over the place for sure. Ichor Feast might actually be a coincidence, but it's hard to say/remember if something bubbled up as a comparison vs. our gaming past sort of randomly haunts the idea space.
You didn't mention Serendipity Ifreet or Duskwing Angel!
I think being a paper game is the bigger limiter. Digital is much more "freeing" and forgiving from a design standpoint for sure. That said, the team's roots in paper games definitely influenced some systems decisions, and I suspect there are "tricks" that some digital CCGs are really fond of that we didn't fully consider or plan to use initially. It's possible that more of those will creep in where appropriate, as they already did during Parsa and Harmony development. Sometimes that's just a side effect of having a richer code base to work from though, access to new tech and features that allowed us do more things that aren't feasible in a paper game.
"Same tools, different ways" is a pretty good description of how some of the faction differentiation shook out. Enchantments as a core card type probably need to exist in every color, but ideally they feel different or other cards in the color interact with them differently. I know the faction design of core is definitely not perfect- we started with three of the colors nomming up a lot of design space because we needed to work out the mechanics, and then three more colors crashed the party and really changed things. In some cases mythological identities weren't exactly aligned with faction identities, but I hope that while messy, some of the results feel like a complex and somewhat living thing. MtG has sort of mastered the art of color identity, but a lot of their output is also very one-note; the red cards are all VERY firey and aggro to a tee... but maybe we've bitten off a trickier thing by not having a completely made up fantasy world.
I think the heightened comparisons to our real world are a neat point of interest, but by roughly mapping a color to a part of the world, to a culture... well, some might consider being TOO one-note kind of offensive.
Is Shopworn Bull a perfectly designed cog in the red machine?
Definitely not.
But we've got some diversity in there we can hopefully be proud of; He proves that not everyone in Oberos territory is a hedonistic flaming blood lord!
Xeneth
I think we often wish that average match times could be SLIGHTLY shorter, but the desire for a very deep and somewhat complex game was always there limiting HOW short. Been seeing some examples of how too short can feel really bad, and in a related but separate sense I'm not sure we ever anticipated how even/winnable a ton of Mythgard matches can feel? I don't have the stats to back this up but I get the impression that concede rates are lower and later than some other CCGs.
Xeneth
It's a bunch of dog lovers... I guess it can't be ruled out infinitely given cats finally got their tribal rolling in MtG after YEARS, but I wouldn't
...No one specifically asked what my favorite spell is but it MIGHT be Earthslide...
Oh, actually that's way better- No one specifically asked what the impact of the pandemic is on the game and whether or not it was inspiring us to do horrible things with Blight...
MAYBE!
(really though this quarantine is making everything even harder than it already was)
Xeneth
Keeping some intended faction strengths and weaknesses in mind for the expansion, as it's pretty fair criticism that parts of Core don't have as much mechanical differentiation as they could, even if the thematic differentiation is mostly there.
I... can't remember a specific/juicy suggestion/idea to showcase but I assume someone suggested that Phu make me put Piercing on Laser Grid so that's top of mind given it's a thing that's happening on my other monitor!
Xeneth
I would be shocked if anything in a live game could ever obtain "FINAL final" visual state, heh. Heck, even old gold master locked games on a disc don't have "final" visuals given the way the industry is remaking them!
Twitch's live drop system is a really weird fit for the games that have been most visibly using it IMO. I think the genres of games that would integrate best haven't really figured it out or tried it, and it makes me wonder... Anyway, not sure how good of a fit card games are. If having Prime dropped some packs on you that would be rad, make Amazon notice or something!
Xeneth
Hm, yeah I dunno if this ever came up internally. It sounds like one of the coin pools would be perfectly consumed by a 10 game series so it feels like there's an opportunity for some numberological alignment?
Definitely correct me if I'm misinterpreting the question though
Xeneth
The player submitted lore text IS a pretty bold and experimental feeling thing, isn't it? But AFAIK there's no reason to draft a plan to REPLACE it at the moment.
Xeneth
Once upon a time, there was crazy talk of every single pantheon being it's own color simply because the mana system is flexible enough to theoretically support it! ...But of course the realities of how that sort of thing would interact with everything from expansions to packs to color readability reigned that right in.
FWIW, already not ALL of the cards are rigidly constrained to a single pantheon! Maze of Iyatiku has a little bit of Native American in the mix, and Purple is already somewhat fusion-y, so yes, it should theoretically be feasible to fit more mythologies into the existing colors.
Xeneth
I am just bad enough at combinatorics that MOST of the interactions surprise me! There's SOME called shots in there, like I recall supporting the move into Dreni for Plague Maidens in part because I wanted to see it with Circle of Protection, but players come up with way more interesting combos than I'm probably capable of designing. Let's see... I recall being totally unprepared for the way Root of the World would come to be used in practice!
I don't think I'm ever going to top Hopeless Necromantic from a naming standpoint, but even though it's licenced artwork and not a commission I've always felt like she magically came together spookily well... I can easily be tricked into splashing Green when Necromantics show up in draft.
Desertification Engine didn't come together the way I'd envisioned it for sure, but that has more to do with my internal vision of the card being too specific; I've found it's much better to toss out the pieces of a card and let it come together in unexpected ways rather than imagining something specific and trying to force it to be good or look a certain way. I can't fully hate a card though, at least it has neat lore text!
I'm partially responsible for the notes being a little less explain-y of late and we can probably bring a LITTLE of that back; I've noticed that some live games have a policy of including a paragraph of reasoning behind each and every change, and it's KIND OF a trap, or at least a double-edged sword. For one we don't have anything close to a producer or intern that might get tasked with a lot of side writing duties like that, but it's also first and foremost an information delivery platform, so there's not always a lot of value in finding a way to say "x card was too strong" but in 30ish words.
In the past I've cherry picked specific changes and inserted additional context when it was more interesting than, "less red meta dominance plz" and that can probably happen again, but hopefully not in the obligatory "I'm struggling to come up with some sort of pun or joke about why this dood has 1 less health now" ...because I've been there, overwriting the patch notes that most of the players don't read. I've definitely been that guy.
Xeneth
The answer to this probably changes every time a big balance patch spins up, actually; side effect of not having an internal QA or playtest team most likely.
The methodology has been different each time but has necessarily required varying amounts of player input; Early on there were more experiments, but Core should feel more like a known quantity now so bigger swings in direction may start to feel less appropriate.
"Do the least amount of violence to individual cards in order to build a larger meta shift out of smaller tweaks" sounds like a reasonable philosophy, but execution, as always, quite difficult!
Xeneth
Rainbow's End is my personal favorite, but I don't think I'm very good at using it, paradoxically.
I still want us to make a spell focused path at some point, but it's not "next in line" just yet...
Xeneth
Infinite Boneyard Abomination corpse explosion of doom I'm guessing?
Xeneth
It's a really funny angle to come from given I've never really been a master of board games and (where I've come into contact with it in video games at least) physical prototyping has always been pretty truncated in favor of digital iteration. I suspect some of the board gamey feel arose organically out of tons of smaller choices, like the lanes are partially there as a concrete way to limit minion count, and the attack trident system was a response to there being too many situations where move was the best action to take, etc. Piles and piles of smaller choices and... oh. It's kind of tactical now isn't it? At the time there were a lot of games going ALL IN on the tactical side like Duelyst and Faeria, so I'm glad that angle didn't take over; imagine how much MORE board gamey Mythgard would have been if Defender and lurker had just become two additional rows or something!
It'll be interesting to see if any of the new tools change the character of that positional game, but it'd be silly to try and predict what's gonna happen; No one's keeping score internally but I bet I'm wrong more often than right when forced to project what the results of any individual trend or tuning adjustment have been!
I know Phu is always trying to come up with answers to tricks that aren't just counterspell, but they're very difficult to incorporate into our ruleset... I've played a little bit of Runeterra and some of the "off board" answers have proved so upsetting that I don't think I've managed to make a good deck without Ionia, heh.
Xeneth
Most of the "high level" ideas and direction originated with Phu, and most of the "low level" flavor and small ways in which mechanics mesh with themes is stuff I've touched, but we've had plenty of help, especially with Nines' dialogue writing and there's bits and pieces of everyone on the team woven into most stuff...
For example, Hoon is the origin point of the idea that long fingernails are a thing Ved'ma witches use to trace and focus automagic, and I'm pretty sure details like that just arise organically when you get multiple creatives thinking about how and why to make a bunch of stuff distinct.
As for the overarching world and setting, a big driver was always to have access to ALL of the things that interested us, not just some. I suppose there's some "creative greed" to that, but when we started a lot of card games were trying on more restrictive story and setting niches, such as "it's like hearthstone, but sci-fi instead of fantasy" and I don't think we wanted to have very many, (if any) limits on the kind of cards we planned to make.
Xeneth
Traditionally my favorite has always been Aztlan(Yellow) from a thematic standpoint. With all the other stuff going on it's difficult to wrap noggins around just how different the world would be if ANY of the cultures that have been obliterated by colonization were still around. (I guess I have my fair share of American guilt about stuff like that.)
That said, Harmony(Purple) might have become the most exciting faction for me given it's a perfect storm of themes I love to see from the Eastern entertainment industry; high tech cyberpunk, horror in the mundane, and virtual/augmented reality!
Aaargh that shirt! Merch is just so... sometimes I think I have an allergy to brands like Cayce from Pattern Recognition...
I suppose there could be a shirt that says:
Common &
Uncommon &
Rare &
Mythic
And it would technically function as an MtG reference in addition to Mythgard
rhinophu
Hi everyone, thanks for all your questions. I'm outie, back to working on tournaments. Gotta get this damn thing out the door...
rhinophu
Marketing is really really tricky. For niche genres, and especially CCGs, it doesn't seem to matter how much you spend, it doesn't translate into users. It's a hard nut to crack for sure.
rhinophu
I've challenged xeneth to add piercing to it for next patch. We'll see if he pulls through. Communication can be hard in the age of COVID ;)
rhinophu
Yeah, the overall sound design has really stood out in the wrong way for this project - our team is just too small and focused on other things to give it the love it deserves. I still hold out hope that we can find the right person to join up and devote some time to it in the future!
rhinophu
Yeah, the overall sound design has really stood out in the wrong way for this project - our team is just too small and focused on other things to give it the love it deserves. I still hold out hope that we can find the right person to join up and devote some time to it in the future!
rhinophu
Good morning, OkamiNoKiba!
No, we don't really want to release the placeholder art as a prestige option. I know a lot of people love it, but for people who are new to the game, seeing the placeholder art can be off-putting. We'll keep an eye out for other ways to take advantage of the art in the future though!
rhinophu
The original original idea and the second and third and fourth ideas for The Recursionist.
rhinophu
No I didn't go to r/ImSorryJahan. I got that mixed up with r/freefolk somehow. Wait, did you edit? j/k
Hey burnmelt, on to your real questions:
Yes, we'll look to revisit mutations in the future
Aren't tribal felines a bit of an oxymoron? Leonines on the other hand...
The community decks are getting stale aren't they? So much has gotten lost while I've been spending all my energy on tournaments...
No, I haven't finished listening to Fetch the Boltcutters yet.
rhinophu
Hello kishkisans! I don't think I have a favorite path really. We do have a new path in production for the expansion. It wasn't the one I wanted to do at first, but it fits the theme of the expansion a lot more, so it's the one we're going with!
rhinophu
I'm gonna avoid talking about the expansion too much, sorry! And also, apologies for the delay - it's definitely taken a lot longer than I wanted. I think we have about 70% of the art in production right now, but a lot of different stuffs have made getting it out on time hard.
rhinophu
Hello lucasHipolito!
We draw inspiration from other CCGs of course - it’s hard not to! I wouldn’t say the team is competent with CCGs though. I do think we’re very competent game developers, and that makes up for a lot. Thanks much for the praise, it means the world, and your feedback and ideas as well.
The new tournament system supports keeper draft, as well as synchronous draft. I hope to get that into your hands in the next few days.
rhinophu
The original original idea and the second and third and fourth ideas for The Recursionist.
rhinophu
Hello kishkisans! I don't think I have a favorite path really. We do have a new path in production for the expansion. It wasn't the one I wanted to do at first, but it fits the theme of the expansion a lot more, so it's the one we're going with!
rhinophu
I'm gonna avoid talking about the expansion too much, sorry! And also, apologies for the delay - it's definitely taken a lot longer than I wanted. I think we have about 70% of the art in production right now, but a lot of different stuffs have made getting it out on time hard.
rhinophu
g'day mate!
MtG is a huge influence on us (and probably most other CCG designers), and we're constantly talking about doing an MG spin on this or that favorite from the past, so you'll undoubtedly see more in the future.
Designing any digital game is really different. People behave differently (and expect different things) online than they do in real life, and taking that into account is both hard and really important.
I definitely think that faction identity is a point where MG could do better, especially from the perspective of new players. I think experienced players get a feel that the colors are very different, and it's probably not a weakness of the game design for most of them.
We developed the tech for Imperative Bell rather recently, but cards like that are something that we've always aspired to, and we certainly hope to take more advantage of those systems/mechanics in the future.
We've found that the vocal part of our audience doesn't like filler cards, so we've somewhat gravitated towards having fewer of them. I don't mind them myself, but what can you do? Thanks for the praise though - we do want to do vanilla cards as well as we possibly can.
We've talked about neutral cards, but there hasn't seemed to be a pressing need as yet. We're not against it in principle. We've definitely discussed color fixers, both in terms of cards and paths, and those are probably a bit closer on the horizon than neutral cards at this point.
I think the biggest limiter on Paths is trying to reduce complexity. The amount of words on Paths is clearly intimidating to a lot of new players, and something we need to work on.
rhinophu
Hi Eolis! I think getting the ai going after a (long) weekend of work was a pretty neat accomplishment that I felt really good about. Not that it's particularly good at playing the game, but it’s served us for a long time while requiring barely any updates or maintenance - it pretty easily adapts to all the new cards and mechanics we throw at it, so that’s been pretty cool.
Our team is built entirely out of either people we worked with in the past, liked, and respected greatly or as recommendations from them. That’s really worked well for us, and it’s been a pleasure and honor working with them. I’m really proud of what they’ve accomplished so far!
rhinophu
g'day mate!
MtG is a huge influence on us (and probably most other CCG designers), and we're constantly talking about doing an MG spin on this or that favorite from the past, so you'll undoubtedly see more in the future.
Designing any digital game is really different. People behave differently (and expect different things) online than they do in real life, and taking that into account is both hard and really important.
I definitely think that faction identity is a point where MG could do better, especially from the perspective of new players. I think experienced players get a feel that the colors are very different, and it's probably not a weakness of the game design for most of them.
We developed the tech for Imperative Bell rather recently, but cards like that are something that we've always aspired to, and we certainly hope to take more advantage of those systems/mechanics in the future.
We've found that the vocal part of our audience doesn't like filler cards, so we've somewhat gravitated towards having fewer of them. I don't mind them myself, but what can you do? Thanks for the praise though - we do want to do vanilla cards as well as we possibly can.
We've talked about neutral cards, but there hasn't seemed to be a pressing need as yet. We're not against it in principle. We've definitely discussed color fixers, both in terms of cards and paths, and those are probably a bit closer on the horizon than neutral cards at this point.
I think the biggest limiter on Paths is trying to reduce complexity. The amount of words on Paths is clearly intimidating to a lot of new players, and something we need to work on.
rhinophu
Hey dude! That's a lot of questions - I'll try to get to them one at a time:
Continual polish is our thing. I hope to eventually address all of those issues that you mentioned, and all the other annoying UI things that bug me eventually!
We've never given Twitch drops significant thought.
Haven't started on guilds or chat yet - tournaments took way longer than I expected (it's one of the few game systems I've never built before, and it was way way more involved than I estimated). I'm inclined to do chat before guilds, at this point with the caveats that I expressed in my first every (impromptu) stream.
I don't think we'll alter the pace at which we change cards that much in the future vs. now. It's a tricky situation though, because some people definitely hate it when we change cards while others really desire it.
rhinophu
Hey BertramNiblitz.
We're really trying to hit multiple notes here, with games that aren't too long for mobile, but deep enough to appeal to PC players as well. Part of the reason for that is that the dev team itself runs the gamut of player types, with some of us that only game on mobile while others mostly game on console. Most of us play a lot of games on multiple different platforms, and so the ability to handoff games started on one device onto another is something that we make frequent use of.
rhinophu
Hi Forgiven12, please forgive me if I don't answer all your questions :)
I came up with the idea of no cost draft runs because I think high stakes draft formats create a vicious cycle where the worst cohort of players are repeatedly driven away, and I didn't want the limited scene to be impeded by that sort of economy.
My hope is that tournaments can fill the gap for high-stakes play with such features as creator set entry fees and prize tables, and support for Mythril (as well as real money and/or crypto in the future).
Most people I've talked to get at least one 10K chest at some point if they keep playing, so I'd guess they're rare, but not outrageously so.
rhinophu
Hello friend! We do know what your favorite bug is :) As for myself, I don’t have a favorite bug really - Mostly just hate them all with unequal but fervent passion.
rhinophu
Hi L0gick27 - Too many questions! Is this an AmA?
I’m never truly happy, and I haven’t had a chance to pay as much attention to the state of the game as I’d like. On the other hand, I also think I have a higher tolerance for somewhat OP, snowbally, etc cards than some people in our audience. Part of our design process is to on occasion push the envelope with effects that we think might be close to breaking the game. I do think that all of those things are necessary to some extent and the game would be less interesting to a larger audience if they weren’t present (each for their own distinct reasons), with the caveat that such cards need to be limited with competitive play in mind, and the team has to be willing to step in when things inevitably get out of hand.
If I had an infinite amount of dev resources, I’d change the world!
rhinophu
We've been remiss in developing the lore. The team is small, and much too busy as it is. I don't have any expectations one way or another at this point - I'm afraid I haven't given it much thought the last few months. Hopefully, I get a chance to circle back and address it in the future!
rhinophu
Yo Nirast25! We've definitely discussed working in other mythologies into the colors that seem suitable. We've talked a lot about Egyptian, American AND East Indian, Polynesean, and much more. We're not inclined to add more colors though - six already seems like it's pushing some of the game systems that work better with not too many colors (drafting for example).
The mana system is actually inspired by a variation of MtG I used to play with friends before Duel Masters was released.
rhinophu
Hi Laezar! I didn’t have a hand in the latest patch notes because of how busy I’ve been. However, usually xeneth writes the explanations. Personally, I’m not a big fan of design explanations for balance changes, because the vast majority of them would end up being some variation of “hey, this card’s too good” (or the opposite in our case, which I think is actually fairly atypical for the DCG industry). I do think the core set is still subject to a fair amount of change...
rhinophu
Hey LakazL! I started with nine because it seemed like the right number instinctually, based off of other similar modes in other games of course. After that, no good reason to change it ever came up. You may have finally come up with one?
rhinophu
Hi Eolis! I think getting the ai going after a (long) weekend of work was a pretty neat accomplishment that I felt really good about. Not that it's particularly good at playing the game, but it’s served us for a long time while requiring barely any updates or maintenance - it pretty easily adapts to all the new cards and mechanics we throw at it, so that’s been pretty cool.
Our team is built entirely out of either people we worked with in the past, liked, and respected greatly or as recommendations from them. That’s really worked well for us, and it’s been a pleasure and honor working with them. I’m really proud of what they’ve accomplished so far!
RhinoLeo
Haha, I can answer this! So before I joined Rhino I had a pass for NYCC 2019. Once I joined I figure I could do something at the convention to try and get the word out. However, once I looked up their rules on advertisement within the convention I learned I had very limited options with a normal attendee pass.
So I made some poster cards with Kara on the front and our information with a promo code on the back. I handed them out and dropped a few at high traffic rest stops in the Javis Center but it has been by far the lowest redeemed code.
On the plus side, people seemed extremely interested in the art and I did not get in trouble with Comic-Con :-)
RhinoLeo
Haha, I can answer this! So before I joined Rhino I had a pass for NYCC 2019. Once I joined I figure I could do something at the convention to try and get the word out. However, once I looked up their rules on advertisement within the convention I learned I had very limited options with a normal attendee pass.
So I made some poster cards with Kara on the front and our information with a promo code on the back. I handed them out and dropped a few at high traffic rest stops in the Javis Center but it has been by far the lowest redeemed code.
On the plus side, people seemed extremely interested in the art and I did not get in trouble with Comic-Con :-)
RhinoLeo
The most difficult part about working remotely is the time difference (3h). Everyone on the team does a good job of keeping me in the loop and involved. But I've had some periods of awkward sleep schedules due to some late nights / early mornings.
Haha yeah, I'm a big fan of Valks and more themed decks like canines and vampires. Other than that I enjoy combo decks and I have a special love for War Fan :-)